Japanese Rail Pass - Working Holiday

Hey there,

my name is Daniel and I'm from Germany.

I'm planning to spend 10 months abroad in Japan (Fukuoka), starting next October. The first 6 months, I will visit a language school to study Japanese, but after that I would like to travel across the country.

Since I'm a student and I have only a limited budget, I wanted to use a Japanese Railpass for 2-3 weeks, but now I've read that it is not possible to buy one with a Working Holiday Visa.

Now I'm wondering if there is any way to bypass this. For example, would it be possible to cancel my Working Holiday Visa after the first six months when I'm done with my studies and re-entry Japan (Take a Ferry from Fukuoka to Seoul and back) as a tourist?

That might work for what you want to to do, but keep in mind you will only be able to stay for three months as a tourist, so that would be a total of 9 months (6 with working holiday and 3 as a tourist). You can try re-entering again but there's no guarantee they will let you in.

Also, the JR pass cannot be bought inside Japan. I've never bought it so I don't know if it would be possible to get it before leaving your home country and activate it 6 months later or if it will have expired by then, maybe someone else can shed some light on that.

I'm not sure when OP is going but JR Rail Group has said that before the end of March 2017 they will start selling the JR Pass in Japan. So I don't see why your plan wouldn't work depending on when your 6 months end.

I suppose you could also have the pass mailed to your hotel in Korea when you do your visa run.

Most of the regional passes can be brought inside the country. You could use those to move across the country. Maybe flying back to Fukuoka at the end.

Depending on your time of travel and if prepared to do small 2-3 hour hopes across the country, then the Seishun 18 Kippu ticket would work also.

A JR Pass exchange voucher expires after three months, so you'd need to purchase no more than three months in advance.

At the end of your studies, you could show up at Immigration Bureau to apply for a change of your status from Working Holiday to Temporary Visitor, I believe. But as stated, you can only extend it by 3 months, so the total would be less than 10 months.

Are you enrolling in a full-time course? Is there any way you can get the school to sponsor you for a Student visa, under which you study for six months, then you apply for a change from Student to Temporary Visitor status, to be eligible for the Japan rail Pass?

Working Holiday Visa is for people who want to travel a foreign country (in your case Japan) with means to earn some pocket money from part-time work to help with the travel expenses, so if your main aim is to study, you could go for the Student visa?

And as mentioned, you'll need to watch out for the expiry of JR Pass exchange voucher; meaning, you'll need to ask let's say your family to buy one and then snail mail to you in Japan.

Most JR Pass sellers operate online nowadays, and they do ship the exchange vouchers to Japan.

It certainly is possible. But if you have the time during your Working Holiday visa, you can also easily fly around the country on low cost carriers like Jet Star, Vanilla Air or Peach (regardless of what visa you have) dirt cheap and see a lot of the country that way.
http://www.jetstar.com/jp/en/home
http://www.flypeach.com/pc/en
http://www.vanilla-air.com/en/

You can also fly to Tokyo and use a Tokyo Wide Pass - this is about the only one that you can use as a foreign resident in Japan, and you can see a lot of great sights in the Kanto area. That would give you less ground to cover after your Working Holiday.

As German you can re-enter under the visa waiver programme and get your tourist permit. Leaving Japan without the re-entry form invalidates your visa so that is easily done.

You can, of course, purchase a JPR exchange voucher from within Japan, just from an overseas agent, and have it sent to you in Japan.

this is about the only one that you can use as a foreign resident in Japan

No, there are very many local/regional rail passes aimed at residents of Japan. See

http://www.jreast.co.jp/tickets/
http://railway.jr-central.co.jp/tickets/index.html
http://www.jr-odekake.net/railroad/ticket/tokutoku/

There are also highway buses.